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Borne the Battle Episode # 221 Air Force Veteran Mark Harper, President and CMO of We Are the Mighty https://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/81447/borne-battle-221-air-force-veteran-mark-harper- president-mighty/ (Text Transcript Follows) [00:00:00] Music [00:00:09] OPENING MONOLOGUE: Tanner Iskra (TI): Oh, let's get it. Monday, November 23rd, 2020. Borne the Battle - brought to you by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The podcast that focuses on inspiring veteran stories and puts a highly on important resources, offices, and benefits for our veterans. I am your host Marine Corps, veteran Tanner Iskra. Hope everyone had a great week outside of podcast land. Myself, I'm trying out some new gear, got some new gear from the office. Don't have it quite soundproofed here in the home studio. So, it might sound a little echoey. It's funny how it's a better, better microphone, but it's a worse quality based on the room. So, we're going to manage and we're going to keep pressing on No new reviews this week to respond to - no new ratings. If you like what we put together every week, please consider smashing that subscribe button and leaving a rating and, or a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps push this podcast up in the algorithms. Which gives more veterans the chance to catch the information provided not only in the interviews, but in the benefits breakdown episodes and in the news releases. Talking news releases, we have six this week, some are pretty brief, so it was not going to be, as long as you'd think. Unless I keep running my suck. All right. First one, it says for immediate release, the US Department of Veterans Affairs announced recently it published an interim rule affirming VA's current policy, allowing VA health care professionals to practice across state lines in accordance with the scope and requirements of their VA employment, regardless of conflicting state requirements. This regulation allows VA the flexibility to mobilize and hire required healthcare professionals from any state and quickly place them in areas of need, which is especially important during COVID-19. This regulation confirms that VA's healthcare professionals are able to practice where they're needed most regardless of state license, certification, registration, or other requirement, including professional supporting assignments for VA's fourth mission, or staffing smaller rural locations, including mobile health units. Since the start of the pandemic, VA has deployed more than 3000 healthcare professionals to 47 States and the District of Columbia. They have served at civilian facilities, the Indian Health Service, state veteran homes, and other VA medical facilities affected by COVID-19. These efforts help veterans and their communities by rapidly moving staff and equipment to assist various parts of the country experiencing serious and critical shortages of healthcare resources. This regulation ensures a VA can continue to serve veterans and support national state and local emergency management, public health, safety and homeland security efforts. Members of the public may comment on this interim final rule so long as it is received on or before January 11th of 2021. You can voice your opinion, you can voice your dissatisfaction with the rule, however you want to voice it. And you can do that at www.regulations.gov [Link] and search for the RIN, number, at 2900-AQ94 A as is an alpha, Q as in Quebec, nine-four. Okay. Second one says for immediate release, as part of an ongoing effort to prevent veteran suicide, US Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced a new partnership with a nonprofit organization, America Salutes You, to raise awareness of mental health resources for service members, veterans, and their loved ones. The partnership will promote, VA's "Be There" campaign and share suicide prevention resources through videos, public service announcements, and broadcast events, streaming online and airing on television networks across the country. Through this partnership, America Salutes You will host concerts and events to educate veterans and their loved ones about suicide prevention with an emphasis on access to VA care. As part of VA's national strategy for preventing veteran suicide, these events use a public health approach to reach veterans in their communities and aim to raise awareness about mental health, social determinants of suicide and suicide prevention, resources through social media and streaming services. And as always, any veteran who is in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, or if you know a veteran in crisis, you can call the Veteran's Crisis Line at +1 800-273-8255 and press one for confidential support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. You can also send a text message to 838255 or chat online at veteranscrisisline.net/chat [Link: https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/get-help/chat]. Okay, the next one says for immediate release, as part of the US Department of Veterans Affairs fight against COVID-19, the department recently announced its nationwide effort to recruit volunteers for COVID-19 clinical trials at select a VA facilities across the country. That's right. If you listen to this podcast, you would know that we did cover this in a bonus episode, our last bonus episode, a couple of weeks back, where we talked about these clinical trials. So, Borne the Battle is getting the information weeks before the press release. I like it. More than 50 VA medical centers are participating in trials to test vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. Vaccines being studied by VA include candidates to by Moderna, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Janssen, and they're in clinical trials for various treatments and vaccines. Now, if you go to that last bonus COVID Update episode, Dr. Molly Klote is an Army Veteran, and she is the one in charge of volunteer safety for the VA. And she dispelled plenty of myths about the trials, how they're administered, nobody's going to force exposure, or they're not going to put, any of the virus in you or anything like that. Basically, you take the vaccine, and you go about your life and you come in for updates. Also, in the blog for the episode, on blogs.va.gov [Link: https://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/], you can find the volunteer list and get more information about COVID-19 trials and research studies. Okay. Next one says for immediate release, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, recently released the VA Customer Experience Accomplishments Report, detailing 71 major initiatives to improve customer service for veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors. Improving customer service as a top priority at VA was established in 2018 and it challenged the department to rethink VA customer interactions, and it designated the Veterans Experience Office as the quote-unquote, "voice of the veteran." Veterans have validated VA's efforts with trust, in VA healthcare reaching an all-time high in April with trust up 16 points since January of 2016. These points are based on over 5.7 million real-time responses from 66 customer feedback surveys. Some recent improvements listed in the report include connecting with transitioning veterans during the first year of their separation via Solid Start, honoring nearly 4 million veterans interred at VA National Cemeteries with a digital memorial space, improving access to board of veterans appeals with virtual hearings, connecting veterans to resources more than 238 million times via VA's weekly email, Vet Resources and answering close to 3 million customer calls via 1-800-MYVA-411 and the White House at VA hotline, which off- which both offer general assistance agents to the veteran immediately. For more information on the Veterans Experience Office, go to va.gov/ve/ [Link: https://www.va.gov/ve/]. And we'll also put the report in this podcast episode's, blog on blogs.va.gov [Link: https://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/]. Okay. Next one says the US Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced it is working with the Centers for Disease Control and prevention, CDC, and other federal partners to develop a comprehensive COVID-19 vaccine plan to ensure VA safely and equitably distributes vaccines once authorized. The plan will be a phased approach based on scientific and historical evidence, lessons learned from past pandemic vaccine plans, and input from scientific experts, both within and outside VA. COVID-19 vaccine implementation will include an initial limited supply phase followed by a general implementation phase when large supplies of the vaccine will be available to veterans who want to receive one. VA experts in ethics, health, equity, infectious disease, logistics, pandemic planning, pharmacy, and public health, as well as those in the areas of change management, clinicians from various disciplines, data, education, IT, safety and training along with government partners were sought for input to help develop the plan. VA also conducted veteran listening sessions for valuable feedback in the planning process. To learn the latest information on COVID-19 vaccines, you can visit the CDC COVID- 19 vaccine site at cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines [Link]. You can also go to blogs.va.gov [Link: https://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/] as there is a great blog on there titled, "When COVID-19 Vaccine Comes, VA Will Be Ready," which kind of lays out the news release out in more of a, of layman terms. All right. And the last one says for media release, the US Department of Veterans Affairs announced recently that VA's chief research and development officer, Dr.